


Not on THOSE papers!

by handschuhmaus



Category: Hogan's Heroes
Genre: Codes & Ciphers, Gen, Letters, Recording Transcripts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-08
Updated: 2019-10-16
Packaged: 2020-10-12 21:37:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 2,525
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20571314
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/handschuhmaus/pseuds/handschuhmaus
Summary: Via a file of papers found in Sg. Kinchloe's effects, a story unfolds of the time Klink refused to let the men send their letters home, ...unless they wrote them on different paper?





	1. transcript 1 (6/26/44)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [flowersforgraves](https://archiveofourown.org/users/flowersforgraves/gifts).

INVENTORY SUMMARY: _These items and documents were found in a box belonging to one Ivan Kinchloe, with labels indicating the box itself originated during his time at Stalag-13. Once properly documented, these items will be returned to his possession._ -A. Waverly

* * *

6/26/44 (coffeepot transcription)

Klink: Would you like some coffee, Colonel Hogan?

Hogan: Ah, no, Kommandant. What is it you wanted to see me about today?

Klink: Fraulein Hilda! Please don’t forget your _papers_.

(sound of papers rustling)

Hilda (probably): No, Kommandant.

Hogan: I may be in a Prisoner of War camp--in _your_ Prisoner of War camp, Colonel Klink, but all the same I am a busy man and I don’t have all day.

Klink (blusters): You’re the one who is always coming into my office uninvited, Colonel Hogan!

(sound of a wooden box closing)

Klink: Hogan, how many times have I asked you _not_ to steal my cigars?!

Hogan: Just seeing if you’d notice, Klink.

(dog barking, more excited than fierce) 

Klink: SCHULTZ! Why is there a dog outside my office?! 

Hilda: It’s my fault, sir, I said I’d untangle the puppy from the wire he got into.

Klink: Those are _attack_ dogs, Fraulein Hilda, you had best leave the untangling to their handlers!

(dog barking, sound of dog nails on wooden floor)

Schultz: Herr Kommandant! I’m sorry, I came as--down!

Klink(suspiciously): Did you have roast at lunch, perhaps, Sergeant?

Schultz: No, Herr Kommandant!

Hogan: No, Colonel Klink, I’m sure the good Sergeant had the same soup and bread as the rest of your officers at lunch.

Klink: HOGAN! Schultz, please remove the dog from the building.

Schultz: Ja, Herr Kommandant.

Klink: Hogan, the reason I called you here today is--

(phone rings)

Klink: Hallo.--Ja.--He is here--I will tell him you said so.--No, General Burkhalter, with all due respect I do not believe he can advise you on the matter at this time.--_No,_ he is an excellent Sergeant of the Guard, as you just pointed out, and I do not believe he will have recommendations on a... christening present!--Very well, General Burkhalter.--tomorrow, you say?--Auf Wiederhören.

Transcriber’s note: I suspect Klink wrote something down here, although not much can be told from the sounds.

Hogan: He wanted Schultzie’s advice on a christening present?! Hmmm, I guess he wouldn’t be the worst man for it.

Klink: (baffled) Do you mean General Burkhalter or Sergeant Schultz?

Hogan: Sergeant Schultz. I mean, he was in a toy company, wasn’t he?

Klink: (exasperated) You’re not supposed to know what he did before the war! Anyway, Hogan, before any more distractions enter my office, I want to give you these.

Hogan: A present, Kommandant, how generous! (rustling sound) Say, wait, Klink, these are letters home!

Klink: And I _cannot_ let you send them at this point.

Hogan: Gee, why not? 

Klink: Be glad they are being returned to you! The paper is unsuitable for mailing. I thought you were going to use it as wallpaper.

Schultz: For wallpaper, Herr Kommandant?

Klink: It’s better insulation than nothing. There was a mathematician who learned from repurposed wallpaper.

Hogan: He must have been an interesting character.

Klink: _She_, Colonel Hogan. And I must insist you take those letters with you, and they will not leave Stalag 13. Of course they won’t, because I am a firm man and no one has successfully escaped Stalag 13!

Hogan: You’re right about that, Kommandant. Mind telling me why?

Klink: The censors would not like these letters, Colonel Hogan. And that is all I can say.

Hogan: All right, then, I suppose we can hold on to them. The men’ll be disappointed, though. 

Schultz: Life in a Stalag is often a disappointment, Colonel Hogan.

(sound of footsteps)

Hogan (distant): Auf Wiedersehen, Kommandant.

Klink: Sergeant Schultz, allow me to pass on General Burkhalter’s commendation for your services to the Third Reich. 

Schultz: Danke, Herr Kommandant.

Klink: And see to it that no more dogs make their way inside this building!

Schultz: Jawohl, Herr Kommandant Klink!

\---end transcript---


	2. letters(3, unsent?) home

\--/6/44

Dear Mother and the rest:

We’re having a grand old time here at Stalag 13. Don’t worry about how we’re eating, everybody loves LeBeau’s cooking, like I said in my last letter, and I think the little frog has gotten better since I wrote. Even though we haven’t anything but the Red Cross Packages to work with. I would like some good English fish and chips now and again, though. Kinch says they have Cornish pasties somewhere in the US of A too, fancy that.

Mostly I write about food because the censors aren’t going to make much of it. I will say that Carter got up to some mischief the other day and knocked down the house of cards Col. Hogan had worked so hard on, really blew up about it. Schultz came in and said we had to build bridges, told us a long story about all his kids’ pet mice escaping while the cat was visiting the neighbor. Anyway, don’t worry about me, we’re well, even if I wish you could send me some cake.

Yours,  
Peter Newkirk

Also on the paper, in brownish ink, this curious sequence: (coordinates, perhaps?) 

H6*23 - 4+4 - 5+3 / 33-16 - 1*4 / 16/4 *0

* * *

3/06/44  


Maman--

I am so tired of slicing apples and I could get no one else to do it. Col. Hogan insisted we distract and, as the English say, “butter up” the guard, because there have been a lot of nasty Germans coming around the camp lately and accusing us of this and that mischief, can you believe it? Newkirk may be an Englishman with sticky fingers and Carter is just a boy who can hardly help getting into a scheme now and then (last week he put some grated beetroot in one of the showers and Newkirk had pink all over his arm when he got out), but hardly what half these Gestapo people accuse us of. How could we, from inside a prisoner of war camp?

Hope you and Pierre are doing well, and the cat. I haven’t heard much about how supplies are doing in France and I hope you are safe, and not going hungry. Of course the Allies will not bomb our camp and with Red Cross packages and what the Luftwaffe procures, we almost never go to bed with our stomachs empty. Last week, Klink had me confined for one of their guard dogs being _too_ friendly when I thought I saw a letter in the dirt by the fence, and I didn’t get dinner, but nobody got any because some fool dumped the soup in the stove. That almost never happens, though, and I got out the next day because he demoted the cook and they needed my good culinary skills! 

But do not worry--except for inordinate fondness for apple strudel and calling me “cockroach”, Schultz is practically a teddy bear in our hands. And Klink the Fink isn’t really that bad, as strict Stalag commanders go. All these other Germans coming around and he protests and says they’ll mess up his perfect Luftwaffe camp.

All my love,  
Louis

* * *

June 1944

Dear Sarah,

Not much rain and we’ve had a hot spell round here. Have you been down to Lake Erie this summer yet? Can you even get away? Hope work is going well for you, but if the last few letters are anything to go by, the censors won’t let me learn anything about it. This time guess I’ll talk about food--that’s pretty neutral and I haven’t wrote about it this year. I miss meatloaf but I can’t expect you’ve had any under rationing. I’d also give up my uniform for a good ear of corn come July or a proper bowl of beans--LeBeau isn’t very interested in them, and the German cooks only put them in some sort of disgusting loaf or in soup. Fish, oh, I wish I could go fishing. If only they could branch out from cabbage and turnips, too--I never thought I’d want broccoli this much. At least it turns out Steckruben, whatever we call them in English, wouldn’t be so bad mashed if there were any butter around, and they give us friendly old potatoes and carrots pretty regularly. Kind of tiring, but all in all the grub’s not worse than what Uncle Sam gives you. The Red Cross sends us candy and we get apples now and then. I overhear Langenscheidt complaining now and then that they aren’t sending the Luftwaffe proper rye bread, so I don’t think the Germans are a lot better pleased. 

Please tell Mom and Dad I miss them and send my love. Also to Cindy and the dogs (I trust Georgie has had the pups?) Very glad you haven’t had war come around there yet, but at least Kommandant Klink is pretty good about following the Geneva Convention and the Allies don’t target POW camps. 

Best wishes,  
James


	3. further transcripts (6/27, 6/28, 6/30)

6/27/44

Klink: Why are you here, Corporal Newkirk? I _expected_ Colonel Hogan. 

Newkirk: Uh, Colonel Hogan lost his voice, sir, laryngitis, and Sergeant Kinchloe got a nasty gash on his leg from a rusty nail in some of that lumber and now the medic’s going on about tetanus...

Klink: (with some concern) I hope he was vaccinated against it. Tell him I want him to get better. And--why _were_ all your letters I returned to you about food, anyway?

Newkirk: Begging your pardon, Colonel Klink, but probably we couldn’t help it, ‘cause ah--Schultzie, weren’t that the day the Red Cross boxes burst open and Hochstetter insisted on searching them, and there wasn’t any dinner for hours? 

Schultz: Ja, it was, Colonel Klink. 

Newkirk: And why did you return them, Colonel Klink? A man has a right to write home, I’m sure it’s under the Geneva Convention. 

Klink: I am not such a cruel man, Corporal. _If_ you can find letter paper, or some comes tomorrow in supplies, and you copy out your inanities about food and transparent flattery towards myself and Sergeant Schultz--don’t think I don’t know you want to think of yourself as a kind man, even towards our enemy prisoners, Schultz--I will see that they are given over to the proper channels and sent home. But _not_ on that paper.

\---end transcript---

6/28/44

Hilda: This just needs your review and signature, sir, and I can send the letter to General Burkhalter.

(a few minutes later)

Klink: Thank you, Hilda.

(some piece from Wagner plays? likely Isolde’s Liebestod?)  
Schultz: [unintelligible] report, Herr Kommandant. [unint.] are secure.

Klink: (despairing) Why haven’t there been any escape attempts?

Schultz: [unint.] you didn’t want [unint.] 

Klink: But today!

Schultz: Perhaps the men are scared after the reports from Stalag-12, even though you are strict but _fair_ Herr Kommandant Klink.

Klink: Schultz, I am disappointed in Colonel Hogan. It is his _duty_, as that Colonel Crittendon says, to try to escape.

Schultz: Kommandant, Colonel Hogan knows you would never permit an escape.

(music stops)

Klink: And is Colonel Hogan really sick with the...laryngitis? Schultz, I don’t entirely trust Newkirk.

Transcriber’s note: Was forced to stop listening due to a very noisy problem in the barracks.

\--premature end transcript--

6/30/44

Hogan: Good morning, Colonel Klink.

Klink: (irritably) Guten morgen, Hogan.

Hogan: Ready for July, Colonel? A lot of the Americans want to have some sort of celebration for the Fourth, but I’ve talked them down to a basketball game and some pie--that is, if LeBeau can find any fruit.

Klink: It’s too early in the year for much fruit, Hogan. Your men don’t want currants and I can’t have them or berries brought in, anyway. But... there might have been some dried fruit, or some cans in with that Red Cross Shipment that had to be dismantled and stored by the food type. The one your men were so upset about, if I am to believe Corporal Newkirk.

Hogan: Well, thank you, sir. I’ll mention it to LeBeau.

Klink: Are you enjoying your new wallpaper?

Hogan: That, oh, well, I’m sorry sir, but Sergeant Carter was just so determined to get the letters out that he put them in with the mail yesterday, and if you didn’t stop them--sir, can I ask just what was wrong with that paper?

Klink: Oh. nothing was wrong with the _paper_, just... Oh, Hogan, some friends of mine hinted to me that the Gestapo, ah, the dogs, would probably get suspicious because they uh, spilled bloody water on the paper and--war on and all that--didn’t want to just throw it away.

Transcriber’s note: this sounds like a lie. Klink is not ...good at lying.

Hogan: Bloody water?

Klink: Some ...minor injury or something. Washbasin, as one does. 

Hogan: Well, I really am sorry, sir, but at this point I don’t think even you can recall the mail.

Klink: No indeed, Hogan. DISMISSED!

(a few minutes later)

Klink: Schultz, did the mail go out yesterday?

Schultz: Ja, Herr Kommandant.

Klink: Including letters from the prisoners?

Schultz: ...Ja, I think so.

Klink: I see. You may go, Schultz. 

\--end transcript--


	4. Postscript: A few possibly related documents

Note: Pictures of these letters, front and unwritten backs, were in London’s intelligence archives as well, pictures, suggestively, taken by the same sort of camera the Unsung Heroes had used otherwise. -A. Waverly

* * *

_possibly related:_

(fragment, originally in English, in obscured handwriting, from general Luftstalag XIII archives)

relayed praise, apparently unprovoked and especially if I should mention playthings (not that you will always know, with our _Eagle_), means their safety. If you are commanded BY ME “Stalingrad posthaste” know that disaster has befallen them, of a magnitude suggested by the posting. Asking of your dogs means remediable danger, in which case hold out sixty hours for praise, and try to wrangle leave if you can get it; if the message does not come I may be compromised and at best Lev in your town can put you on their trail. -B

* * *

_Likely related:_

(trans. from Polish, found in files of a Luftwaffe officer who also had sporadic and vague correspondence with Wilhelm Klink)  
And here is how to understand the messages: I have send you diagrams of the proper alphabet (33 characters) and the other characters (arranged a i u e o). The numbers you receive are a movement of the alphabet, counting forward from 1 at the starting letter. The vowels are ordered: divide, multiply and subtract, add. You were given a book detailing the Playfair cipher; work it backward on the syllables extracted per these instructions. The end result you will have to translate from the Greek. 

* * *

Our decoders also found this message, in a primitive “invisible ink” on LeBeau’s letter:

C17/11 / 19+30 /0

They worked out that message to read “laudanum”, and the one on Newkirk’s to mean “Hitler how should he go”. Because we do not believe this was an official code, we suspect this was another internal assassination attempt, although perhaps one which never went through.

**Author's Note:**

> A. Waverly's name is pilfered from _The Man from U.N.C.L.E._(2015 movie), where it is the name of the spy team's English handler. You can decide whether you think it's a relative.
> 
> The code should work out... for bad [Google Translate] Greek, but it is mostly a security by obscurity-and-piling-ciphers-onto-each-other thing, and I wouldn't necessarily recommend it? Also I'm not sure Playfair ciphers mix _well_, per se, with syllabaries, which was done here (Japanese). Writing Greek with a syllabary was inspired by the story of deciphering Linear B.
> 
> (Oh, and the wallpaper thing is purportedly true; Klink is referring to Sofya Kovalevskaya)


End file.
